In good times and in bad

Bashkim Veliu lowers his gaze, lost in thought as memories from 25 years ago resurface. “When they left, it felt like someone died. The yard seemed abandoned,” he recalls, remembering June 18, 1999. On that day, his father, Bajram drove the five-member Sylejmani family, who had stayed with them as refugees for six months, to their next destination.

His narration is briefly interrupted when a waiter from a nearby café enters, placing a coffee on Veliu’s desk. He manages the family’s grain processing business in Dobrosht, a village near Tetovo, North Macedonia, North Macedonia. As soon as the waiter leaves, Veliu starts to tell his stories again, blending memories of war with those of peace.

The memories seem faint to him. He pulls out his phone and calls his father, Bajram, using the Viber app. Bajram lives in Germany with most of the extended Veliu family. He said he could talk for hours or even days about their bond with the Sylejmani family. He apologized in advance if his tears interrupted the story.

“For me, they are like my own family, even though we only lived together for six months and three days,” said the white-bearded man, his voice catching. “My father is deeply connected to Gursel’s family,” Veliu interjects, helping to fill the silence as his father composes himself. The quiet of the office is disrupted by the hum of cars from the road outside.

Meanwhile, in Ferizaj, the sounds of young people talking and cars passing through the underpass near the train station do not distract Pranvera Sylejmani.

She sips her coffee on a café terrace, adding details to the story that Bajram and Bashkim started. As she speaks, her gaze settles on the statue of the martyr Ramadan Rexhepi, a soldier who fought alongside her father, Gursel, and her uncle, Bajram Sylejmani. Both brothers were martyred in 1998 during what is known as the Epic of Jezerci.

Pranvera was named after her father Gursel’s favorite season — spring. Gursel, who was also a painter, chose names for his children that reflected his love of nature. “He named us Pranvera [Spring], Kaltrina [blue] and Diell [sun]. He loved spring for its sense of renewal, the sunshine and blue skies,” she explained. Pranvera, Kaltrina and Diell, along with their mother Alije and paternal grandmother Sofije, sought refuge with the Veliu family in Dobrosht at the end of 1998 and early 1999.

Her face lights up when she talks about family celebrations here in Ferizaj and across the border. “The first people we invited to Diell’s wedding were Bajram Veliu’s family because we consider them part of our own family. Neither we nor they count numbers of people because we are considered hosts at each other’s weddings,” Pranvera said with a smile, recalling her brother’s wedding. The friendship between the Sylejmani and Veliu families has grown over the years through various events. However, the circumstances under which this bond was formed are quite unusual.

The long road to Tetovo

Before seeking refuge with the Veliu family, the Sylejmani family faced many difficulties. In the summer and fall of 1998, they fled from their home in Sadovinë, which had become a target for raids by Serbian forces. They sought safety in various villages and towns in southeastern Kosovo, hiding with relatives and friends. Despite the constant danger, Pranvera also found some moments of joy in her childhood, such as bathing in the raging waters of the Lepenci. However, she was always aware that being in public spaces posed a risk.

But there was something she was forced to forget for the sake of her family and herself.

“Whenever people who didn’t know me asked my name, I gave a different one so it wouldn’t be public, because we were afraid the Serbian police would find and arrest us,” she said. Now, she doesn’t even remember the name on the forged passport she used to cross the Macedonian border at the end of 1998. At that time, Pranvera — now a teacher at the Çesk Zadeja art school — was just nine years old.

After reaching Tetovo, North Macedonia, where 344,500 refugees from Kosovo took shelter, they temporarily stayed at a relative’s house. However, due to the limited space available, Pranvera’s uncle, Bilall Sherifi, reached out to his friend in Tetovo, Bajram Veliu, to see if he could offer shelter to the family. Although Bajram knew nothing about the Sylejmani family, he didn’t hesitate to help — he was willing to shelter any Albanian family persecuted by the Serbian regime in Kosovo.

Bajram said during the video call that he hadn’t met Gursel Sylejmani before, but after Gursel’s family settled in the house of his brother, who was in Germany, he saw him in a dream, him leaving a bunch of flowers as a bequest. Although Bajram only knew about Gursel from family stories, the dream deeply moved him and gave him the courage to look after the Sylejmani family as if they were his own.

Bajram also turned a blind eye to the mischief and typical children’s games that took place in the large, slightly sloping yard of the house.

“We climbed trees and played various ball games, but even when we misbehaved, they never yelled at us,” said Pranvera. “Uncle Bajram, his mother, his father and the children made sure we had everything we needed. We found fresh bread and rolls in a bag at the door every morning. They really pampered us in Dobroshte.”

The women, including the host Ajshe and Pranvera’s mother, Alija, worked tirelessly in the kitchen, preparing food for both families.

“We ate at one table. Aunt Ajshe prepared the food, but Mom also helped,” said Pranvera.

Cooking and baking flija brought the children of both families together as they played in the yard. Alija handed slices of flija, hot from the pan on the embers, to Pranvera and Sevdija — Bajram and Ajsha’s daughter, with whom Pranvera spent most of her time.

Pranvera chooses to focus on the kindness of her hosts rather than on the endless suffering of her family or the pain of losing her father and uncle in the Jezerci mountains. She highlights that her friends treated her with kindness. She continued the third grade at the village school. “The Albanian teacher was very kind and explained things very well, but the only difficulty I had was learning Macedonian,” she said. “We never felt like we were in a foreign country.”

Similar to Sylejmani, about a million other Albanians were expelled from Kosovo to Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro during this period. Their experiences are commemorated on a wall at the Ferizaj’s train station. Ferizaj came to symbolize profound emptiness and displacement in March 1999.

In 2021, as part of the ninth edition of the MuralFest festival she co-founded, Pranvera rolled up her sleeves and worked on the “Road” mural. This mural depicts Albanians sitting on train tracks, waiting to leave their homes. It is inspired by a photograph from the French news agency AFP, published on April 1, 1999 in the Washington Post under the headline “In a horror movie, you couldn’t imagine this.” The title quotes Astrit Gashi, a student who had been expelled from his home in Kosovo.

The photo captured the scene at the Prishtina train station. “On the platform, paramilitary troops in green jackets and athletic shoes brandished knives. Some barged aboard and called out, ‘We are vampires. We like to drink blood,’” wrote Daniel Williams, the article’s author, among other details.

For Pranvera, the mural dedicated to her father serves as a reminder of the past. “It aims to unite our citizens by reminding us that despite our current differences, we all come from the same past,” she wrote on the MuralFest website.